40 HORSE-SHOES AND HORSE-SHOEING. 



hoof for a cavalry not shod was an indispensable condition. 

 It appears that the Parthian horses, bred in the plains of 

 Mesopotamia, were not provided with shoes, and this fact 

 alone explains why, in the wars with the Romans, the 

 Parthian armies, almost entirely formed of cavalry, and 

 always victorious in their sandy deserts, melted away or 

 suddenly disappeared when they had pursued their adver- 

 saries into the mountainous and volcanic regions of Ar- 

 menia, which are covered with obsidian and sharp stones ; 

 it was simply because the Parthian or Persian horses were 

 not shod. The absence of a protection to the horn ex- 

 plains why — and I believe that this fact has not yet been 

 remarked or appreciated at its just value — the Ten Thou- 

 sand Greeks, in their retreat after the battle of Cunaxa, 

 and of Mark Antony and Julian, falling back on Armenia 

 and its mountains after their defeat in the plains, were able 

 to escape from the numerous Persian and Parthian cavalry 

 which incessantly pursued them.' ' 



If the Greeks were unacquainted with the art of 

 attaching a rim of metal or other hard substance to the 

 part of the hoof brought into contact with the ground, it 

 might be expected that the Romans who imitated them 

 so closely in equestrian matters would not, at any rate for 

 some time, be in a position to devise anything of the 

 kind ; and that, as a consequence, the utility of the horse 

 must have been as limited as with the Grecians. And 

 such would appear to be the fact. When nearly all the 

 arts had attained a high degree of perfection, the one in 

 question, which would have been of the greatest assist- 



' Megnin. Op. cit. p. 9. — Notice sur h\s Races Domestiques cles 

 Chcvaux. Moniteur Universel, March 16, 1855. 



